


Stains of Time

by shinealightonme



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-20
Updated: 2009-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reid and Emily deal with the fallout from West Bune.  AU for "Elephant's Memory."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stains of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Hurt," originally by Nine Inch Nails. The CD referred to in the fic is Johnny Cash's "American IV: The Man Comes Around." Thanks once again to [](http://lady-of-scarlet.livejournal.com/profile)[**lady_of_scarlet**](http://lady-of-scarlet.livejournal.com/) for the beta read. Originally posted [on LJ](http://shinealightonme.livejournal.com/32954.html).

Reid didn't like flying. He'd once been afraid of it – learned behavior, picked up from observing his mother's reaction – but with some practice and a lot of dedication, he'd managed to unlearn it.

Flying no longer caused him anxiety, but he disliked the way it made him feel caged. So often when the team was on a plane they were racing against time before an unsub struck again, and he came to associate flight with that rushed, helpless feeling; he was always just waiting for them to land, to get to what they had to do.

Now there was nothing to wait for, and that feeling wasn't much better.

-

Emily was quite used to flying – her mobile childhood had prepared her well for a job spent constantly on the go, one plane ride after the next – but the flight back from Texas felt like the longest flight of her life.

After a "good" case, the team usually found some way to release the insane energy that came from relief and too much caffeine and the approximation of victory. If it was late, or the case had been rough, they slept. After a bad case, they were generally more isolated; keeping to themselves until they could construct adequate defenses against whatever had gone wrong.

This was different. Even after the worst of cases, there was never such complete stillness. Hotch had gone briefly to talk to Reid, but other than that, everyone was perfectly silent, motionless save for the glances they very carefully did not direct towards Emily or Reid. It was like she'd brought death on the plane with her.

-

The day after Texas, the cravings returned. The night before had been too numb to want anything, even drugs, but in the morning the pain was fresh and sharp and Reid knew exactly what would dull it – at least temporarily.

Instead, he found an IHOP where he could kill some time until the next Beltway Clean Cops meeting. He ordered coffee and distracted himself as best he could, doing sleight-of-hand tricks with the sugar packets and stacking the creamers on top of each other. The waiter started giving him curious glances, so he finally ordered some pancakes in addition to his coffee. He wasn't hungry, and though he tried he couldn't eat, but he figured he could take them home for later, when the nausea had subsided. When he couldn't handle sitting at that table any longer, he left, figuring he'd wait in his car.

There was still plenty of time before the meeting started, but as he pulled up to the building he noticed he was not alone. He hadn't expected to see John at a meeting at this time in the morning on a workday. The confusion must have shown on his face as he stepped out of his car because the first thing John said to him was, "I heard about your case."

"I'm sorry," Reid said, without knowing what he was apologizing for – being a burden to John, or what happened in Texas. Both, probably, and more, but it didn't matter. There was no absolution.

-

Emily woke the next morning with a headache and a sore jaw; she'd clenched her teeth too tightly in her sleep. It had been a while since she'd done that. She thought of lying in bed and taking advantage of the opportunity to laze, but the pain in her head prompted her to go to the kitchen for some Advil.

The light on the answering machine was flashing just as it had been last night – two new messages. She hadn't listened to them yesterday and she didn't bother now, either, because she knew what they were; Hotch, telling her he was serious about her taking the next few days off and she shouldn't show up at Quantico, and her mother. Emily didn't know _who_ owed the ambassador a favor, but someone was keeping tabs on her under her mother's orders. Ever since Baltimore, she had known every time Emily flew back from a case and called within the hour to check in on her. She wasn't sure if this was her mother's way of taking care of her or taking control. What she did know was that she had to talk to her mother eventually, but she couldn't handle it yet.

The next few days stretched out in front of her with no obligations and no plans, and the feeling was so foreign to her that she had no idea what she'd do with herself.

-

He was trying to convince himself to eat something when his phone rang, and as tempting as it was to let it go to voicemail, he thought it best not to appear weak or troubled. Dodging calls would make someone from work suspicious, and it wasn't very likely that anyone else was calling.

It was work-related; someone calling from the office of a Dr. Roberts to inform him that he had a psychological evaluation scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It was standard procedure, and after the way he'd acted on the case, Reid knew he was lucky that scheduling a few appointments with a department psychiatrist was _all_ that Hotch was doing, but he still balked at the idea of going. He wasn't about to ditch, though; he remembered how that had gone for Elle, and he knew that it would ultimately cause more problems for him than it would solve.

He wondered if they were making Emily go to counseling. They probably were, and he didn't know how he felt about that. He wasn't sure it would help.

-

When her phone rang she assumed it was her mother. She didn't feel like talking to the ambassador just yet, but the odds were slim she was ever going to feel like it, and she figured she'd just get it over with.

Instead, it was a call from a department psychiatrist, informing her of her appointment for the following day. She wondered drily why she was surprised; of course Hotch was taking care of her. He'd made JJ get counseling after the Battle incident, too.

At least counseling would give her something to do tomorrow. She'd spent the day vacuuming every inch of floor that she could reach and scrubbing the walls of her shower; she wasn't sure there would be enough chores left to get her through the rest of her mandatory time-off if she didn't leave home at some point for at least a short time.

Hotch must have made an appointment for Reid, as well. Emily's stomach clenched painfully at the thought of Reid, trapped in a meeting he didn't want, talking about things he shouldn't have had to see. Essentially, she had put him there, though it hadn't been her intention.

-

It was no good; try though he had, he couldn't write. The paper in front of him was a mess of scratched out fragments and aborted sentences. He sipped his coffee and nearly choked when he discovered how cold it was. How long had he been sitting here, staring at the page in front of him, willing it to fill itself with words? He sighed and threw away the paper as he went to get more coffee.

He gnawed on his lower lip for a minute before pulling out a fresh sheet and starting again.

_Agent Hotchner gave me some time off for the next few days. It should be a good chance to get some research done..._

-

It was a bad idea, but as her fingers ran across the sides of jewel cases, she couldn't help but stop when a title caught her eye. She was looking for music to help take her mind off things, and this would only do the opposite, but her fingers still traced the spine thoughtfully before taking it down and opening it.

The CD wasn't a favorite of hers, but it had been a gift, and she'd listened to it enough times to remember the first track. She'd had it stuck in her head since they'd watched that video, and the words sprang unbidden to her mind, so that she spoke along with Johnny Cash as the music started up. "And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder..."

She stood in front of the stereo until the song was over, and then stopped the CD. That was enough penance for now; she didn't think she could pay any more tonight.

-

The conversation had lapsed, and now the psychologist was just _staring_ at Reid, his eyes scrutinizing, and against his better judgment Reid couldn't help but break eye contact and fiddle with the buttons on his sleeves. He would have been relieved when Dr. Roberts broke the silence, if he had said anything other than, "Tell me about Owen."

What did that even mean? There had been records of all kinds, newspaper clippings, emails, text messages, and Reid had seen them all. Reid could tell him Owen's exact time and place of birth, his height and weight as recorded at his last doctor's appointment, his grade point average, his favorite recipes that he missed because no one could make them quite the same way his mother always had.

Reid could tell this man everything there was to know about Owen, and yet ultimately it was all nothing. There was only one thing he could say that would mean anything.

"I wanted to help him."

-

"Agent Prentiss, come in, have a seat." Emily did as the psychologist said, entering the impeccably decorated office and sitting on a stylish but rather uncomfortable couch. "How are you today?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" she asked wryly.

He chuckled at that for a moment. "Now, I'm sure you know why you're here."

"I'm here because my supervisor told me I'd better not show up at work if I missed this appointment."

He wasn't quite sure how to take that, and Emily wasn't even quite sure how she'd meant it. She fidgeted, trying to get more comfortable and hoping that 'awkward' was going to be the worst she had to deal with today.

"Honesty," he said finally, without much conviction. "Very good. I see we're off to a good start."

Emily nodded, her smile small and very tight. She wasn't sure she could be honest with him, didn't think she could tell him how hollow the case felt to her. It hadn't been _her_ case at all; it wasn't about the team, or protocol, or even the unsub – it had been about Reid all along, since they first heard the name Owen Savage. Only at the end of the case, only then had it been about Emily.

It shouldn't have happened the way that it did. That it had become about them was both the problem and the punishment.

-

"JJ?"

"Hi, Spence." Her voice had that strained quality that it got when she was rushing, busy at work and on the verge of being overwhelmed; yet she still sounded cheerful. He could picture her, phoned pinched between shoulder and ear so that she could dig through files with both hands, a bright smile gracing her features.

What he couldn't quite picture was why she was calling him. It seemed unlikely, but he asked anyway. "Do we have a case?"

"Nope." Reid shut his eyes and leaned against the wall; he'd wanted the answer to be "yes" far more than he should have. JJ sounded upbeat, either unaware of his disappointment, or feigning ignorance to grant him some privacy. "I do call people for other reasons, you know."

He nearly answered that it was the only reason she ever called him, but it wasn't fair and it wasn't true, so he ran a hand through his hair and drew in a shaky breath, neither of which accomplished much. "So what's the reason this time?"

"I just wanted to say hi. It's not the same around here without you."

"You could talk to Hotch."

She sighed. "Spence..."

"I know. Not happening."

"It's only a few more days," she consoled. "Besides, you know what I would do for a few days off?"

"No."

"Neither do I, exactly." Reid could hear another phone ringing nearby, and JJ muttered a few curse words. "But I'd be willing to do something fairly drastic at the moment. I'm sorry, I need to get that – "

"It's fine. Make sure you tell Hotch that I'm doing okay."

JJ laughed. "Oh, please, like I would spy for Hotch. He's on his _own_ there, trust me."

Reid knew that she would tell Hotch if she thought it was necessary; he hoped she hadn't gotten that impression.

-

"You don't talk to your mother anymore?"

"Mom, look, I've been really busy – "

"Too busy to pick up your phone and let me know you're okay? You take that cell phone of yours everywhere, Emily, you can't have missed _all_ of my calls."

"This isn't really a good time."

"I know you have time off work. You could even come visit, and while I'll understand if you don't, you should at the very least spare a few minutes to talk to me."

"All right," Emily sighed. "I picked up, didn't I? What is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Your _case_, Emily. I know you've just come back from one."

"I did. In Texas." She shrugged out of habit. "It was a case. We got our guy. What's to know?"

"How did it go? How are you doing?"

"I'd hate to bore you with details."

There was a short pause, and Emily could picture her mother pursing her lips disapprovingly. "I may not like what you're doing, but I want to know that you're doing it well."

"Checking to see that I didn't screw up?"

"You know that's not what I meant. I just want you to be happy."

"I am," she said bitterly. "I'm happy, mom. You don't need to worry about that at all."

-

The rest of the team was acting as though things were as they had been a week ago, as though his absence had been nothing more than a vacation, as though nothing unusual had happened in Texas. If this were for his benefit, it did no good. Reid didn't need someone else's help to recognize failure.

He knew that, ultimately, things _hadn't_ changed. What was one more fallen kid to a town that already had so many to mourn? What was one more dead criminal to a state that would surely have executed him?

Yet at this very moment, things felt different to Reid. He felt as though he had lost something, as though he were no longer an FBI agent but just a hopeless little boy, playing at rescues and heroism. He wasn't sure exactly how to act around the others, around Emily – so when he saw her that morning, he simply walked passed her without looking at her, without returning her hesitant greeting.

-

It had stung when Reid ignored her, there was no denying that, but she understood. It was no less than she had expected. She just hoped that things would change soon, that he would change his mind.

Morgan walked up to her a moment after Reid left; she thought he might have seen what happened, but he didn't comment directly on it. He did lay a hand on her shoulder, though, and quietly tell her, "I would've done the exact same thing in your place."

"Right. Thanks." She'd thought that it had to be done, and she was glad that Morgan agreed with her, but they would never know for sure if she had done the right thing. There was no way to tell now whether Reid would have succeeded, given just a little more time, or if a little more time would have killed him. She hadn't been willing to take that risk, even if Reid had been, even if Reid had asked her to.

She wished the cost of taking that choice out of Reid's hands weren't so high; but there was little she could do about it now.

-

He needed time. After enough time he would be able to close his eyes without seeing another kid dying in front of him. He'd hoped that his days off would be enough, but after a week back at Quantico, he was still playing that last encounter over and over in his mind, trying to decipher Owen's expressions, to know whether he had been lifting the gun to fire or to surrender. No matter how many times he went through it, though, he couldn't decide for sure one way or the other.

He was not so absorbed in his own problems that Emily's distress escaped his notice. The last several days had been hard on him, and he could only imagine the toll they had taken on her. When he'd handed her his gun, he'd needed too badly to believe in Owen, to believe in himself; he didn't think about the possibility of her firing it – but of course, she couldn't afford to believe too much in either of them.

Reid had no idea what he'd have done in her position, and he had to stop thinking about it.

-

She didn't dream of Owen, not exactly. She often saw Jordan Norris in her dreams, looking horrified and heartbroken, but the body of the man she cried over changed from night to night. Sometimes it was Johnny McHale, still clutching his cell phone. Sometimes it was James Dean. Sometimes it was Reid.

While she told herself firmly that dreams were just the subconscious mind resorting images, that they didn't mean anything, it was hard not to be shaken by the nights she dreamed of shooting – of killing – Reid. It was hard not to find meaning in them. And it was even harder to look him in the eyes on those mornings.

-

Hotch had known better than to partner them for their first case back in the field, yet when the call came in, there wasn't much choice. They were the closest ones to the scene, and their unsub wasn't going to stay put and wait for someone else to come arrest him just because they weren't getting along well.

It would be fine. There might be this tension between them, but she was still Emily. They could still work together.

Couldn't they?

He wondered if he was imagining things. It looked like Emily was a few heartbeats behind him in drawing her weapon. His mouth was dry as he worried about the implications, what that could mean if it were true, if she would hesitate to take a shot now.

-

Reid's eyes were flicking back to her when they should have been focused forward. What if he didn't trust her?

That wasn't an option. He had to. Anything less than trust would jeopardize both of them, their case, and the team as a whole. She put him out of her mind as much as she could afford to, focusing on the sounds from the house around them, the shadows on the floor and the walls, anything that would tip off the location of their hidden killer. Her awareness of him was simply so that she would know where he was, if she needed to protect him, if she could protect him.

There was something, so faint she wasn't sure it was really there, but Reid had heard it too. He jerked his head in the direction it had come from and she nodded, taking the lead toward the bottom of a flight of stairs. When the noise sounded a second time, she followed it up, and Reid followed her, so close she thought she could feel his body heat.

There was no doubt this time; someone was in the first room on the left. Emily caught Reid's eye for a second, and this time he took lead. She didn't have time to think about what that meant.

-

"Freeze."

That word caught in Reid's throat, strange and out of place, but it worked all the same; their suspect stilled instantly. He didn't turn to face them, didn't even move to take his hands out of the dresser they'd caught him digging through.

"FBI," Emily said, with the sort of conviction Reid hoped he'd had. "Hands above your head." He still didn't move. "Hands above your head, _now_."

"I don't know what you think you're doing," the unsub's voice was trembling, and he coughed. "But you can't just barge into my house. I've got rights, you know – "

"Cut the crap," Emily snapped, catching Reid's eye and jerking her head toward the unsub. He nodded and started to approach slowly. Emily's voice continued, steady, the familiar pitch and rhythm reassuring. "This isn't your house, and that sure isn't your wife's underwear drawer you're pawing through, so why don't you just make things easy on yourself and come with us."

The unsub finally moved, slowly, but he had no intention of raising his hands and surrendering. He was reaching over, not up, and Reid was close enough to see the weapon just as the unsub wrapped his fingers around the handle.

"Put the gun down, now."

-

They had no reason to believe the suspect would be armed – no evidence of a gun at the crime scenes, either at the time of the murders or the B&amp;Es that preceded them – but it was always a possibility, one that Emily _hated_.

She knew Reid did too, but he didn't look fazed. Moments like this reminded her that Reid had all the same training and evaluations as she did; she forgot that, sometimes, when he was doing magic tricks with rubber bands or quoting the exact population of Nebraska according to the 1910 census. Now he was serious, focused, though his voice was no less kind – _put the gun down for your own good_, not _put the gun down or I'll shoot you_.

Either way, the unsub didn't step down, and while Emily couldn't see the gun, she could see the muscles in his arms tensing. "Don't do anything stupid," she advised him, to no avail.

He turned, too quickly for either agent to react, and lashed out, striking Reid across the face. Reid stumbled back and Emily lowered her gun, not willing to take a shot when they were so close. She stood in the way of his escape, bracing herself and ready to take him out when he came at her.

It wasn't necessary. The unsub didn't get more than two steps before Reid regained his footing enough to grab him by the arm, and training or not, the guy had fifty pounds on Reid and a _gun_, and Emily was at his side in a flash, her own firearm holstered and handcuffs out and ready.

-

The adrenaline that flooded his system while cornering the unsub temporarily washed away the tension of the situation. It came back in full force when the rest of the team arrived to take the handcuffed suspect off their hands and tsk at the scrapes Reid had gotten in the scuffle. He felt fine, but true to form, Hotch insisted he get checked out medically.

Reid didn't protest. He could see Prentiss fiddling with her holster, and he knew she was looking down and keeping busy to give him a chance to get away without speaking to her. He nearly took it, but forced himself to stay a second longer.

"Ah, you did a good job. Today." Internally, he winced; it sounded so patronizing. He'd felt like he had to say something, though, and that was the best he could do. It was the _only_ thing he could do, and before she had a chance to respond, he walked away.

-

They had captured the suspect without firing a shot, but Emily could still hear gunfire ringing in her ears. It wasn't until Reid spoke to her – quietly, like he didn't even realize he was talking – that the sound lessened, and she could reconnect with reality.

He wasn't quite looking at her, but that didn't matter; he was speaking to her when he didn't have to. She would have forgiven him if he had left, and she'd been expecting it so much that she couldn't think of anything to say until he was gone.

Just as well he'd left, perhaps, before her manic grin scared him off. It might not have been much, it might not have been anything, but it might also be a promise of something she thought was long gone.


End file.
